Lecture with Jarrett Walker
Thursday, February 6, 2014
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
LOCATION CHANGE
The Auditorium at 66 W 12th Street (Formerly Tishman Auditorium)

Jarrett Walker is one of the most innovative planners and advocates for public transit in North America today. He believes that transit can be simple, if we focus first on the underlying geometry that all transit technologies share, and that the forces that cause transit to succeed or fail often go unexamined in today’s transit debates. For architects, urban designers, housing and development professionals, transit is key to building successful cities, yet its essential task and the keys to its success are not always clear.

In this engaging lecture, “Abundant Access: Public Transit as an Instrument of Freedom,” Walker leads us beyond some of the distractions that sometimes dominate transit debates, to an understanding of public transit’s core power: to give people freedom.

Walker is an international consultant in public transit network design and policy, with over 20 years of experience in projects across North America, Australia, and New Zealand.  He is the president of Jarrett Walker and Associates in North America and also serves as Principal Consultant with MR Cagney Consultants in Australia.  He is a well-known innovator in the redesign of transit networks, in describing transit issues to the public, in building values-based policies and standards, and in running fun, interactive design processes for transit plans.

His book, Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, was published by Island Press. It offers an introduction to transit issues for the average reader, designed to help anyone form clearer views that reflect their own values.  In addition to his consulting, teaching, and speaking, he writes about public transit issues at HumanTransit.org.

Walker is in New York City to teach a two-day course on transit network design, sponsored by the Transit Center, on February 6 and 7. More information about the workshop is available at http://jarrettwalker.com/courses/.